


Secrets and revelations, or scenes from an alternate epilogue

by HandmaidenOfHorror



Series: Convergence AU [1]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cassandra Cain is Batgirl, Convergence (DCU), F/F, Fluff, Gen, Stephanie Brown is Batgirl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:47:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22244311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandmaidenOfHorror/pseuds/HandmaidenOfHorror
Summary: Renee finds an intruder in her flat. Jason finds two in his.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Jason Todd, Kate Kane/Renee Montoya, Stephanie Brown & Jason Todd
Series: Convergence AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1649794
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Secrets and revelations, or scenes from an alternate epilogue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ictus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ictus/gifts).



When Renee opened the doors to her flat, she knew somebody was inside. She instinctively moved her hand to take out her gun, only to find the holster empty. It’s been half a year since the strange, honeycomb-like dome appeared over the city, isolating it from the rest of the world. One of the effects of the sudden emergency was ordinary products quickly becoming luxurious and then disappearing completely. (Renee misses coffee – nowadays only hospital staff is allowed a limited access to coffeinated drinks.) Bullets were such a luxury – after most of police reserves were used during the initial riots, it was declared that firearms are to be used only in case of dire emergency and forbidden from being taken out of police stations so as not to tempt fate.

The underside of it was that Renee was left with her fists in a fight against the burglar. Paradoxically, domed Gotham become safer, as firearms without bullets were mere toys and people knew that, thus any bluffs were unlikely to succeed. However, this particular burglar came through the window (Renee felt a draft when opening the doors, which alerted her to the intruder – she always made sure that all the windows were closed and locked before she left), a window on the fifth floor, meaning that the invader was dedicated to get to her in particular – which most certainly meant a mafia assassin. Who now knows she’s behind the doors.

Fuck.

Her mind racing a thousand miles per minute, Renee considered her options and decided she has none – she has no weapons, while an assassin is sure to have the best ones the domed city could provide. Thank heavens they managed to somehow round up almost all the rogues early on and lock them up (prison guards in Arkham and Blackgate _do_ have weapons on them), though it only means she’ll be shot to death rather than die in a prolonged torture session. Well, if she has to die, she will go down fighting, at least.

She kicked down the doors, ducked, grasped the standing lamp she kept out of habit (electricity nowadays functioned only in small handful of public places in Gotham) and faced the invader.

It was Kate.

Renee mentally facepalmed. Of course her ex girlfriend would break into her flat and stand in the middle of the living room in full Batwoman costume. It’s not as if she could have just come as Kate, knock on the doors, or write a damn letter. Renee didn’t even know she was in Gotham when the damn dome appeared!

And now she has seen Renee make a fool of herself. Renee’s cheeks turned bright pink. She hoped Kate hasn’t seen it, though she almost certainly did. She straightened up and turned to inspect the doors (though mostly to try to regain some of her undermined dignity).

“So”, she asked Kate with her back turned, “what is so important that the Batwoman herself had to break into my flat to tell me about it?” (Thank heavens the doors are undamaged, closing and locking as they should, she would have had hard time finding someone to repair them.)

“Lois is pregnant”, answered Kate. Simple, to the point, explaining nothing.

“Who is Lois?”, asked Renee, turning to face Kate. Now that she got a good luck, she realized Kate wasn’t looking well. Tired, stressed, maybe even depressed.

“Lois Lane”

Renee blinked, “That journalist from Metropolis? I didn’t know she was your friend. But why do you consider that so important that you had to break into my flat to tell me?” Renee did her best to sound angry and intimidating while half whispering.

“Clark Kent is Superman”, came the answer.

Renee froze briefly. Lane’s husband? “Wow. That’s just… wow. I guess that’s because he lost his powers like everybody else?” Kate said nothing, so Renee continued, “That’s a big thing. The Lois thing. But also the Clark thing. Like, thanks for telling me a thousand years afterwards…”, she realized she was babbling and stopped.

After an uncomfortable minute of silence, Kate resumed talking. “I’m sorry for entering like this. I only just learned both. Batman is organizing a team protecting the couple at all times. If a rogue learned of it, it would spell disaster. There are so many unknown factors in play and I… I felt overwhelmed and…”

“And you came to me”, Renee finished the sentence. She smiled. “I am honestly touched that you came to me when you couldn’t cope with your feelings. I’m not mad about the flat. Let’s sit on the couch, ok?”

They did. Kate took off her cowl. She looked… kind of deflated? As if she were running on adrenaline and the adrenaline has ran out (which is probably what happened). She gave Renee a small smile back.

“So, a team, huh?”, said Renee.

“You don’t have to join if you don’t want to,” replied Kate.

“My police work takes priority, you know it, but the Question will help you bats to the extent of her might”, said Renee, only too late realizing how cheesy she sounded. She made Kate smile again, at least.

“I was thinking about families,” started Kate, “About me. About us. The whole situation with a dome allowed for creation of a new life that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. And I thought…”

“To maybe give us a second chance?”

“Yes, but…”

“Sure.”

“Huh?”, Renee loved the surprised expression Kate made.

“We are stuck here, we don’t know what is happening outside, hell, we don’t know if there’s an outside, the world may end any minute, why not take any and every chance for happiness?”

Kate smiled again. She stood up, put the cowl back on and before Renee could say anything else she was already on the windowsill. “I’ll move tomorrow afternoon,” was her parting words before she was gone. Oh well. Being back together will never be boring, at least.

***

Jason was straight up not having a good day. That by itself was not particularly noteworthy, as he couldn’t remember when was the last time he actually had a good day. But ever since the dome came, his days suffered a vertical drop in quality.

Despite what the bats may think, Jason does care – the safety of the city’s weakest and poorest has always been his top priority. Red Hood may be yet another rogue in the eyes of the bats and police, but for the homeless, the street walkers and the neglected children Red Hood was a friend. (That said, he only cares about the city’s elite enough not to shoot every rich idiot pissing him off.) He’s also not stupid: as soon as he realized that the city is locked, he utilized his double image as bane of the criminals and friend of the poor to intervene in the riots and secure a supply of food, water, medicine and basic everyday items for the Narrows. Not that anyone outside his usual group of underdogs acknowledged that, but such is life.

Having made sure that people have basic needs secured, Red Hood disappeared. Of course Jason didn’t spend his days sitting in a basement (he didn’t even have a basement), but he had put his persona to rest. One, after initial riots Gotham police managed to get hold of situation and _finally_ arrest the majority of the city’s rogues and made sure they stayed in prison (he doesn’t believe in the “act of God” interpretation of the barrier surrounding the city apparently taking away the powers of the metahumans, but sure as hell it was helpful). Two, he just wouldn’t be able to keep up his preferred method of fighting, and he had to admit his hand to hand fighting skills are not that good. Three, with the outside world cut out, he could no longer have his income rely on drug market, and he dealt with the emergent food and medicine mafia harshly and in some cases lethally (even he has moral boundaries he won’t allow crossing).

And thus he became Peter the Paramedic. He already had skills that made a decent one, and with the city being no longer connected to the outside world anyways, it was easy to claim he was a nurse in training from Metropolis. Sure, days were shitty, but he helped saving people every day, and if he could help make the world a bit better, it was worth it.

But there are moments when he wondered why he even tried. Like when he found both Batgirls waiting in his flat.

Fuck.

He didn’t have anything against the girls in particular. Hell, he didn’t even remember ever meeting them before. But the two girls being here meant they knew who he was and weren’t going to let him be Peter the Paramedic.

Jason closed the doors while keeping his eyes focused on the girls. There was no point trying to escape. There was no point trying to fight the girls either, as the black Batgirl could probably take on Batman and win. But maybe if he managed to take the purple Batgirl hostage…

In the second it took Jason to start forming the plan the purple Batgirl raised her hands, “Peace, peace! We didn’t come here to fight.”

Before Jason could make any sarcastic comment, the girl pulled her mask off. Jason blinked, flabbergasted by her downright stupid move, but also her identity – he knew that girl!

“Nurse Brown?”

“In the flesh! Hi ‘Peter’,” she had the audacity to wave at him.

“Do you think that just because we are work colleagues I’ll let you make a citizens’ arrest?”, he kept the conversation as he was thinking of a strategy. The black Batgirl ( _Cassandra_ , his memory supplied) was observing him closely, and would catch his intention before he finishes any movement. Damn.

“No, no,” Brown ( _Stephanie_ ) quickly replied, “We really just wanted to talk! We haven’t told anyone else, promise!”

Jason weighted his possibilities and decided that in short term taking the girls on their word would cause the least damage, “Say what you have and get out.”

“Ok ok, let’s keep calm, so I’ve recognized you right away when you started working in the hospital, but I thought, hey, it’s an emergency and you were helping people not killing them, and I thought, heck Steph, you never really thought who this Red Hood guy was as a person, so I kept watching you and-“, Jason winced at the run on sentence structure, “and I decided to come out and become your friend!”

Jason blinked, flabbergasted again. “What.”

“Yup! You seem to be an actually good guy at heart, and Batgirl here – the other Batgirl, we are both Batgirls – agreed with me! So, uh, let’s share some cookies, maybe?”, she pointed to what seemed a ton of pastry laid on the table.

Jason mentally facepalmed. “You knew who I was and decided to break into my flat and bribe me with food. Are you insane?”

“Maybe”, replied the girl cheerfully. Then Cassandra started speaking, “I wanted to meet you. My mother, she is your mother too.”

Jason froze, “No.”

“She is! Genetics say so,” Stephanie cut in, “Shortly before the dome appeared, uh, we discovered that your and Batgirl’s blood samples share some genetic markers. Batgirl couldn’t pursue that due to obvious reasons, but a few days ago we – me and Batgirl and R-Red Robin,” Jason didn’t react to the mention of the boy’s code name, he had enough shock for today and honestly he didn’t care about being replaced anymore. Steph continued, “We fought and took in Lady Shiva.”

“I asked her. If she had children before me. She said that yes, but she left the boy after birth,” the other girl seemed tired when she finished talking. Jason remembered from his files that she had a speech impairment due to neglect in early childhood. He felt sympathy towards the girl.

“So yeah, turns out you are siblings! So, how about a family reunion plus a fellow dead Robin to cheer the mood?”, Steph grinned.

That piqued Jason’s interest. Shortly before his reappearance in Gotham, he has heard that Batman took on yet another Robin – a girl who died in a gruesome manner soon after. The tragedy of yet another senseless death fueled Jason’s anger more than being replaced, maybe even as much as not having been avenged. And the girl is alive?

Jason found himself wanting to know more about the girls, to actually take on their offer of friendship. He smiled and stepped closer.

“Do you happen to have any chocolade? I miss it.”

The girls smiled and Steph started talking about various pastries they brought while Cassie came closer and touched his hand. “I am Cass.”

Jason smiled, “Nice to meet you Cass.”

Maybe the day wasn’t so bad after all.


End file.
